Rt-9

Marcum has a good deal going on right now. Thinking of getting the rt-9 has anyone had any experience with it good or bad? There website says they have fixed some issues

For the cost I think people are going to the Helix 5 or 7 as it does almost everything the rt-9 does for cheaper. I am a Marcum guy and loved the idea of the rt-9 when it first came out except for the price but I think the helix is the better deal now. I do like the fact that if you fish with a camera the rt-9 can over lay it onto your graph or flasher dial and you have the best of all 3 worlds. If that is your intent to use a camera then the rt-9 is you best option. I just don’t use my camera much so I went with the lx-7.

Update. I bought it and used it the first day without issue 100% battery after 2 hours of use. Left in my truck (probably a mistake) started off today with 44% and died within about 3 hours. Will recharge and try again tomorrow. Anyone else have issues? I used to leave my vexilar in my truck all the time and never had issue. It says to save battery to turn off features but doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose of spending big money on it?

Yes navionics chip micro sd however you may need to bring a generator to keep it from dying. Full charge today turned off unused module ports gps location and WiFi and even with all that turned off external battery stopped charging after 2.5 hours and now I’m done to 53% battery waiting for it to die. Total run time will probably be around 4-5 hours. Hoping I can return it back to Marcum

It has a internal lithium battery, keep it warm prior to using it and you should be just fine.I assume when you said you kept it in your truck, that meant overnight? What you screen brightness at as well? I have noticed that keeping mine at 50% has really helped my run time.

It was fully charged inside my house. Brightness 50%

Should have mentioned fully charged Sunday night and brought it out fishing again today. 4 hours of run time has left me with 3% battery and yes the external battery was charging internal battery for about 2-2.5 hours. Great idea but I don’t think enough testing. Getting 12 hours of run time shouldn’t be an issue

Yep I would be a unhappy camper

Mark Rudy wrote:

Should have mentioned fully charged Sunday night and brought it out fishing again today. 4 hours of run time has left me with 3% battery and yes the external battery was charging internal battery for about 2-2.5 hours. Great idea but I don’t think enough testing. Getting 12 hours of run time shouldn’t be an issue

Not enough testing? MarCum knows exactly what they’ve sold you. I have a friend that manages a fishing department at a retail store and I asked him why the RT9 wasn’t being offered at retail. Rapala is the company that markets and distributes all other MarCum sonar products but they won’t touch the RT9 with a 10-foot pole and they’ve refused to sell it to their retailers! They know what a POS the RT9 is and they’re not willing to put their name behind the product.

So what does Marcum do? They come up with a sneaky plan to sell factory direct and take advantage of people that trust MarCum’s products. The RT9 has major run-time issues that have never been resolved. The user interface is horrible. Durability is horrible. You will have your RT9 in for repairs if you can actually find a way to keep it powered out on the ice. How do I know? I was dumb enough to buy one when the product was first released several years ago. I had nothing but issues.

I paid nearly $1500 for mine at the time. I can’t tell you how mad it makes me to see MarCum discounting the RT9 to move them when I paid full price and they left me out to dry when I was having so many issue. MarCum is throwing in a Camera Panner to sweeten the deal which is another MarCum product that lasted one season because it was another POS. Don’t fall for this factory direct deal!!!!! Ask yourself why none of the bigger name pro staff guys are using it.

Save yourself a gigantic headache and a pile of money and buy yourself a LX7 and use your cell phone for GPS. Or buy TWO Humminbirds that work flawlessly for the same price as one RT9 with all its issues. I’ve run Marcum units for a long time and never had any issues until I had an RT9. I’m not trying to bash a product more I’m just trying to save fellow ice anglers from wasting their time and money on this horrible product. I don’t know how long this post will last but if you can please share this info with people that are thinking about buying an RT9.

endzoneseats wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Mark Rudy wrote:</div>
Should have mentioned fully charged Sunday night and brought it out fishing again today. 4 hours of run time has left me with 3% battery and yes the external battery was charging internal battery for about 2-2.5 hours. Great idea but I don’t think enough testing. Getting 12 hours of run time shouldn’t be an issue

Not enough testing? MarCum knows exactly what they’ve sold you. I have a friend that manages a fishing department at a retail store and I asked him why the RT9 wasn’t being offered at retail. Rapala is the company that markets and distributes all other MarCum sonar products but they won’t touch the RT9 with a 10-foot pole and they’ve refused to sell it to their retailers! They know what a POS the RT9 is and they’re not willing to put their name behind the product.

So what does Marcum do? They come up with a sneaky plan to sell factory direct and take advantage of people that trust MarCum’s products. The RT9 has major run-time issues that have never been resolved. The user interface is horrible. Durability is horrible. You will have your RT9 in for repairs if you can actually find a way to keep it powered out on the ice. How do I know? I was dumb enough to buy one when the product was first released several years ago. I had nothing but issues.

I paid nearly $1500 for mine at the time. I can’t tell you how mad it makes me to see MarCum discounting the RT9 to move them when I paid full price and they left me out to dry when I was having so many issue. MarCum is throwing in a Camera Panner to sweeten the deal which is another MarCum product that lasted one season because it was another POS. Don’t fall for this factory direct deal!!!!! Ask yourself why none of the bigger name pro staff guys are using it.

Save yourself a gigantic headache and a pile of money and buy yourself a LX7 and use your cell phone for GPS. Or buy TWO Humminbirds that work flawlessly for the same price as one RT9 with all its issues. I’ve run Marcum units for a long time and never had any issues until I had an RT9. I’m not trying to bash a product more I’m just trying to save fellow ice anglers from wasting their time and money on this horrible product. I don’t know how long this post will last but if you can please share this info with people that are thinking about buying an RT9.

Sad to hear but I’m not surprised. I would definitely say to anyone on the fence to not buy it. I thought it was odd that Scheels didn’t stock it and I also bought the pancam when it first came out and was disappointed. I ended up selling that and with the one that came free with the deal I was going to sell to help with the price.

Hopefully this post will help others not make the mistake that endzoneseats and I made. I emailed marcum and requested to send it back and get a refund. I will keep this post updated on what they say. The unit isn’t even a week old yet so hopefully I get my money back or if nothing else an exchange for an lx-7.

Thanks for posting and glad that I ended up not buying one.

phishingruven01 wrote:

So, your major issue is battery life? Does the unit perform like advertised, minus the battery life? I’ve read that Energize Outdoors and Dakota something make a lithium external battery for it.

I already have 900 into it with shipping really not interested in putting any more money into it. Marcum should send them out with that battery since this is a known issue.

phishingruven01 wrote:

I understand your frustration. That’s a lot of money.
But, is the battery life the only issue you have so far?
does the unit work?

So far that’s the issue. Pretty big issue though. I also bought a new chip for it that hasn’t shown up that was 200 I thought it had a decent map on it loaded but it doesn’t. I like the idea of it but the battery life is pathetic. I’d have to bring my generator out to charge it if I were to fish all day which I normally do.

Marcum emailed me back and I had 2 choices. Take the 2nd battery with to get more run time or return. I opted to return. Carrying a 2nd battery out wasn’t very appealing to me. If battery life were to be corrected I think it would be an ok unit

Luke urban wrote:

That’s cause it’s a lithium ion battery inside a tablet….and in the manual it say.. 90 minutes run time.

The internal battery on tablet gives up to 2 hours. The external battery gave it another 2.5 hours. What marcum is saying is to use 2 EXTERNAL batteries to give more run time. Using both EXTERNAL batteries would give you about 8 hours of run time roughly